


Give Sorrow Words

by LateStarter58



Series: The Felixstowe Sonnets - Tom and Cate [5]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 16:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17470943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speakWhispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.”Macbeth, Act IV Scene 3, William Shakespeare





	Give Sorrow Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is the latest instalment in a long-running occasional series of drabbles, all written as gifts for a special friend. I hope she likes this one...

“Your hands are cold.”

“No kidding, genius.” It was cold outside, even for a London January.

“You changed your hair.”

“Look who’s talking.”

They are standing, close, not moving, smiling shyly at each other. It’s been too long since they parted reluctantly on that painful morning so far away from here. His fingers are touching, tentative, then weaving gently between hers. He’s convincing himself: she’s there, she’s actually there. In his house.

“I can’t stay.”

Of course not. He closes his eyes, remembering: the beach house, the waves, the warm night. Them, together.

She can never stay.

“I know.” He lifts her hand to his lips, brushes over it gently. Tears blur his view of her and he blinks them away, reluctant to move his eyes, not wanting to waste a second of this precious time. He allows his mind to return to California, and those magical few hours.

_Her skin, olive, fragrant, just how he always dreamed it would feel against his. She was so delicate, so tentative, and he was afraid to force or hurry anything. They had just sat and looked at each other for a long time, both hesitating, afraid to mis-step, to hurt, to lose what they had. But eventually, their love and desire had brought them closer and he tasted her mouth, her neck and he felt her sigh, held carefully in his arms again as she had been in the bookshop. And then it was beautiful and the world went away._

She looks up at his lovely sad face,far away. Even in her heeled boots the top of her head only just reaches his shoulder; she lets her hand rest on his neck, where the blue jumper ends and the pale soft skin she loves is bare. Her fingers touch the ends of his hair and she teases it as she remembers how it felt against her skin, the silken flow of it, the smell, and the way she wanted to hold it and tug, and then she needs to turn away but he pulls her closer.

“Don’t, Cate.”

“I must, I have to go. I really can’t stay.” She breathes him in, feels his heat, his shape, his… his _Tomness_.

“Just a little longer. Please.” His voice is soft, barely above a whisper and it hurts her heart.

“Don’t ask me, you know that I can’t.”

“Then come back, soon.”

She looks up again, a sparkle in her eye she can’t hide. “I am. In a couple of months.”

His smile would power a small town. “Alone?”

“Not exactly _alone, no_ , but…” Her smile, sweet and girlish gives her away, and now it is she who allows her mind to travel, in an instant, across the planet and through time to a quiet room by the ocean where once she lay in the embrace of this man she has loved but not had for so long that it has become a wound that never quite heals, a grief that never progresses.

_How is he real? She had asked herself that so often, from the start, and yet, now, it remained the question uppermost as she gazed upon him. So beautiful, so perfect, so gentle, so kind. His was the soul hers had searched for, he was the one she thought of when she woke and when she fell asleep. And his was the heart with which hers beat. And no matter how far apart or how close, and now they were closer than they had ever been, she always felt his love, deep inside. For a few precious hours, she could pretend that they were truly together, that nothing else mattered, and that there was nobody else to be hurt. And so they did._

But people live, as they did, both of them, even the rich and successful, in the real world. It is harsh and cruel and messy. Things are not as we might wish, and stuff gets in the way. Constantly.

But there is always hope.

She looks around her, storing up the room, memorising it, taking it into her heart along with his face and his eyes and all the precious things that she loves. She folds these moments up carefully, tucks them away as she turns to leave, to return to her real life.

He watches as she sheds him. He sees it happen and it breaks him, because he understands that she has to do it. But he can’t help himself: he takes a step forward and pulls her against his body one last time, burying his face in the fragrant shimmer of her hair.

“Come back to me, my Cate.”

“I will."


End file.
